C1 Promotion points

General slalom chatter...rant about the bad, rave about the good
paddlerparent
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Joined: Thu Mar 05, 2015 3:52 pm

C1 Promotion points

Post by paddlerparent » Wed Jul 11, 2018 3:16 pm

Looking at recent results there are a good few paddlers in C1 with great results finishing on podium but not getting points for promotion. Looking at one paddler they have 4 2nd's and a 1st but still not there, perhaps the C1 promotion points need a review to allow progress of more paddlers

what do people think?

djberriman
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Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2007 8:19 pm

Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by djberriman » Wed Jul 11, 2018 10:54 pm

exact same question was asked about 12 months ago and I predict like last year it will all happen in next few months. Competition is strong and good!

djberriman
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Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by djberriman » Wed Jul 11, 2018 10:58 pm


JimW
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Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by JimW » Mon Jul 16, 2018 3:55 pm

I think more C1 paddlers are needed to allow progression of the best paddlers, not simply allowing progression of lots of paddlers.

At the end of last year I felt close to promotion in C1 (maybe not in the division you were thinking of), but not necessarily ready for promotion. This year a good number of paddlers have shown that they are actually far better than me, and because at most events we need to win to make progress on promotion this has kept me well clear of the promotion zone, whilst still ranked near the top of the division.

I love C1 and have enjoyed some good competition (with some paddlers who have been promoted since this thread started), but I still feel as though good competition is rare in C1 because the numbers competing are so much lower than K1. Just now I have no interest in getting promoted in C1, I am happy paddling C1 on the courses in my current division and occasionally if I get a PU, I just wish there were more other paddlers who would take up C1 and enter races for enjoyment thus making each race better for all of us, including those with more ambition.

djberriman
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Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by djberriman » Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:59 am

The solution is not fiddling with points required, that is too random depending on a number of factors.

One possible solution is to have a base entry level, I think the figure works out as between 43 and 45. Thus if an event has less than 45 points are worked out as if there were 45, that way the first 2 paddlers always get worthwhile promotion points, it prevents situations like I encountered a few years back where Tully had 13 paddlers racing in Div 2 K1M when the other events up to that weekend had had more like 70. Utter waste of time and money for 12 of us, except for the experience, fun and enjoyment, we knew who was likely to win and they did.

Even that idea has issues if there is more than one event on on a weekend as then 4 get worthwhile points rather than 2. I don't think there is an actual answer to making things 'fair' other than using the system used in some other countries were everyone is compared to some sort of average to get their points but I have no idea how we would make that work.

Dee
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Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by Dee » Tue Jul 17, 2018 10:40 am

djberriman wrote:
Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:59 am
The solution is not fiddling with points required, that is too random depending on a number of factors.

One possible solution is to have a base entry level, I think the figure works out as between 43 and 45. Thus if an event has less than 45 points are worked out as if there were 45, that way the first 2 paddlers always get worthwhile promotion points, .....
Issue with this is that if there is a very small number of competitors then the second paddler could well be getting promotion points on a really lousy run. Three paddlers starting - one swims both runs, paddler two literally has to go through start and finish the right way up once to get useful promotion points.

There is no easy solution to this dilemma (if there was, it would have been implemented years ago).

Ideas I haven't seen mentioned (or don't think I have)....

1). Reintroduce factors for calculating scores for C1, C2, and K1W, then calculate points across all the events in that division. Note I'm not suggesting basing points on K1M but incorporating all events before calculating points. This could help at comps where K1M turnout is low.

2). As for 1 but without factors - adjustment of promotion points will definitely be needed

3). C1,K1W, C2 get the points they would have got in K1M if this is greater than the points they get in their own event (I'm not sure this would help much and probably wouldn't justify the additional complexity)

I think 1 and 2 could bear some investigation, but we would have to recognise that first season could be a steep learning curve!
Kit Washer, Entry Clerk, Chauffeur, Reluctant Organiser, Online Entry Advocate .....
Anything I post under this user is my personal opinion; I am not posting as a member of the Slalom Committee!

StephS
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Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by StephS » Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:17 pm

Hi,

First time poster here but reading the boards for a while. :)

I actually think point 3 of Dee's ideas is worth considering. This is especially pertinent where a C1 event is quorate but only just e.g. 5 paddlers - and many are good paddlers/not doing lousy runs. Just one paddler less would give a very different points result.

As an example, looking at Div 2 - I can see cases where a paddler gets lots of 2nd places ( and even 3rd places) and may be not much time behind paddler 1 ( so still has a decent time) but gets multiple 400's ( and not useable points for promotion targets). If calculated against the K1M times (taking account of the appropriate factor e.g. 1.08 or 1.20) would have got 500's. This is further compounded by having raised promotion targets.

This principle could be incorporated into all small field points calculations e.g. 2nd out of 9 paddlers gives a very different result than 2nd out of 30 etc.

In terms of complexity to calculate this, I would think that some functionality like VLOOKUPs in an excel spreadsheet could do this?

JimW
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Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by JimW » Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:52 pm

I'm not sure about that, when 2C1M is inquorate we are rarely fast enough for any of us to get 500 points when compared to 2K1M with 8% correction.

It has got me thinking about new ways of calculating points to account for havng several paddlers close at the top, trouble is if you scale from fastest to slowest in class, it only takes one paddler to have a terrible day with multiple 50s penalties to mean everyone else gets far too many points....
Maybe one of our statisticians can work out what a normal spread of times should be, so if it is say 20% behind the winner, the points would be allocated based on where your time falls within 20% and anyone slower than 20% gets minimum points? Could that work? Pretty sure I would have got less points at Washburn and HPP on that basis even though I had an inquorate win at Fairnilee!

djberriman
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Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by djberriman » Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:13 pm

I think the statistical approach is probably the best, it would have to be based on something like the top 10 or 20% as if based on winner (who can often be super fast) points for others would be much lower and indeed as pointed out above if based on all then there would be a similar affect.

JS often talks about other nations using a Mr Average which I guess is what we are talking about.

What it really needs is to understand that process, how it would be implemented and then applying it to this years results to see what the affect would be - any volunteers out there? Perhaps someone doing a degree or similar and needing a project?

Its not the sort of thing that can be implemented on an ACM monitor without a thorough understanding, even the small changes we make each year some times have unintended consequences not least of which the headaches for the volunteers who have to implement the rule changes.

StephS
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Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by StephS » Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:28 pm

In response to Jim's post...

That might be the case for DIv 2 men in those particular comps.

However, I've just done some quick calculations for the Div 2 C1W paddlers. Of the top 4 not yet promoted, 3 would have already got promoted if the class hadn't been quorate - this just seems a bit wrong/disadvantaged by having a small class? There would have been 500 points rather than the 400's and in some cases the 300 points given. So these are fast paddlers in the comp.

Dee
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Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by Dee » Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:56 pm

@StephS - Please don't under estimate the complexity of calculating points, never mind adding the extra option from my third suggestion into the mix.

Ken Trollope used to maintain simply slalom and 'cursed' (metaphorically speaking) the new calculations for Vets points (in particular B5.3.3) and they are a of a similar ilk. I suspect a VLOOKUP is not going to cut it.

I'm just relieved that I don't have to calculate them
Kit Washer, Entry Clerk, Chauffeur, Reluctant Organiser, Online Entry Advocate .....
Anything I post under this user is my personal opinion; I am not posting as a member of the Slalom Committee!

JimW
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Location: Pinkston

Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by JimW » Tue Jul 17, 2018 8:00 pm

Steph - you may well be right, I don't know the 2C1W as well as 2C1M but I have a feeling at least one of the girls you are talking about has put in better times than me at some races.

I still think that more paddlers is a better solution than tweaking points though.

CeeBee
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Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by CeeBee » Wed Jul 18, 2018 2:00 pm

Using statistical averages is also fraught as the variance between categories also varies on the length and difficulty of the course. This has been evidenced for years with selection - much more difficult for categories to achieve percentages at Lee Valley than Holme Pierrepont or Grandtully.

I also think that comparing women's racing to men in this equality world isn't a good message anyway.

JBS
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Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by JBS » Thu Jul 19, 2018 11:32 am

Do we maybe look at C1M and C2 getting points according to their relative position in K1M after whatever % adjustment and C1W similarly against K1W?
I have no idea if that is realistic and/or desirable.

Mike Mitchell
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Re: C1 Promotion points

Post by Mike Mitchell » Sat Jul 21, 2018 4:58 pm

I agree something needs to be done. It is hard to get out of the Top of Div1 C1 and the other classes and divisions are probably the same.

Looking at Div 1 promotions this year to Date
K1 Ladies. 57 Competitors 4 promoted.
K1 Men 110 Competitors 8 promoted.
C1 Ladies 22 Competitors 2 promoted.
C1 Men. 35 Competitors 1 promoted.

What is noticeable is that 3 of the K1 Men got promoted on PU points. So without the PU only 5 would have got promoted.
So PU works and is a way for any good paddler to get promoted.

The problem with PU is actually getting the entry in the first place. Races like Tees Prem have a list of nearly every Div1 paddler racing the next day. Top of the list is those that got there entries in on the opening day, back at the beginning of the Year.

So a solution to help good paddlers get promoted would be to offer PU entries to the Say top 5 on the Ranking list on close of entry for the particular event. If there was still spaces then this could be then extended to top 10 and so on.

Dont say this is not fair as all you would need to do is get into the Top 5 in your division.
This would also help to keep the Standard of all paddlers in Prem at a high level, which is what Prem was first introduced for.

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